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We have a website/app in which users can select the following accessibility settings when on the login page:

  • Language (default is English)
  • Font size (default is 12px for regular text etc)
  • Colour scheme (default is green buttons etc)

Once the user has logged into the site, they are able to change their accessibility settings again if needed. These settings are now saved as the default for that user.

When the user returns to the login page at a later date, the login page will again be shown with all the default settings.

Here lies the problem, what happens when the user logs in again?

Do we:

1) Use whatever the settings were in place when they click "login" - this would mean they would need to change the settings every time they login

2) Revert back to their default settings - this could look very strange to login to a site at regular text size then once they are logged in, everything goes massive and high contrast!

Help!

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  • I think you'll find that most people that like to have specific accessibility settings will have already set it at browser-level, long before reaching your site, so to be honest it probably doesn't matter which option you go for here.
    – JonW ♦
    Aug 26, 2015 at 9:18

2 Answers 2

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Users take the trouble of manually setting accessibility settings for a reason. They want (or need) high contrast or large fonts. They want the site to be in their language.

To the user, logging in is just another action they're taking on your site. It's no different than any other page on the site. And perhaps there are other pages or content that can be consumed before logging in. So why should the UX on the login page be any different? It doesn't make sense to lose their accessibility settings once they log out, IMO.

I would design this so that their accessibility settings are stored in the browser's local storage, so that the language, fonts etc. that they chose to use are in place as soon as they visit the site, even before they log in. And they should definitely be in place after they log in.

It's this type of consistent user experience that results in happy users.

An exception to this would be if this application is expected to be used by different people on the same computer - eg. if this is a call center app, etc. If this is a concern, consider adding a 'Reset layout' (or 'Site looks funny?') button on the login page that resets the UI back to the default settings.

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It really comes to two basic Usability Issues

1) User Expectations (Was user expecting the same settings he set in the last session? I guess YES)

2) Flexibility + Freedom of Control (Users should have option to go back to default settings)

Just for example

if i leave 2 items in my cart on any site and when i visit back and see my cart empty. It is not what i expected...(User Expectation)

Should i be able to change my cart or empty my cart yes (Freedom of Control)

These are basic Usability Heuristics http://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/

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